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I started to take my 6year old brother to church, but he's afraid of Jesus Christ? There's a huge depiction of Jeseus on the Cross on the wall behind the altar, he's afraid to look at it because he says it is "scary". What can i do to help him overcome this fear?
Honestly it's strange that showing children pictures of a man being tortured to death on a cross is still acceptable today. Of course it's normal for a child to be frightened of that.
Difference between real life picture of tortured man hanging from a huge wall and red paint on a ragdoll inside a screen
I've never seen a real life picture of tortured man hanging from a huge wall.
The crosses that hang in protestant churches are generally purely geometric symbols.
When we lived in Italy, I saw some gruesomely realistic crucifixes with accurate (northern European) skin-tones, gash in the side, metal crown of thorns and garishly red blood dripping down on forehead, hands, side and feet. (And you see crucifixes of some sort in virtually every public office and every school room.) I'm convinced there's some seriously messed up sadomasochistic shit going on with that.
Horrific depictions of Jesus is just one of several reasons to not bring children into a Catholic church.
Honestly, I'd look on YouTube to find kid friendly stories of, Jesus. Videos he can watch that depict Jesus helping children and then explain to him that the representation of him on the cross is just a reminder of the sacrifice he made for him. Good luck.
May I ask which sect of Christianity the church is? I'm athiest but grew up in a religious household. Specifically, I grew up in a predominantly Pentecostal town. That scared me pretty badly as a kid.
Other types of Christianity never bothered me though. While I would also suggest letting the kid figure out religion at a later date, its not my family and will leave that to you. However, if you're in a Pentecostal church, I would suggest better explaining the aspects of it that can be seen as creepy.
Well churches are somewhat creepy imagery wise, and he is six.
Or he’s just a future satanist and can already sense the lies.
Tell him the truth: it's all make believe.
Ask him if he really finds Megatron in the Transformers series or the baddies in Scooby Doo scary, or if he kinda likes pretending that they're scary, and that's the same reason some silly grownups like to put those pictures and statues around. If your mother is one of those that guilts her kids into doing things, tell him that's also why the bosses of churches hang those depictions of the guy on the wall.
This proves that he shouldn't be exposed to that in the first place. Do u really think a church is a suitable place for a 6 year old
Might have something to do with the whole torture device thing. Just explain that God needed to become a person to kill himself so he could forgive and it'll all make perfect sense to him.
The way some Churches teach Christianity... He's right to be scarred.
But; yes, a child would normally be scarred of a good representation of a crucified person (even if done wrong: The chances that Jesus was crucified on a cross is less than 1% as most crucifixions were done on a pole with both wrist nailed to the post above the head).
I wrote Jesus with first letter capital Why is it lower case now? Stupid website.